UNIPI Team Leader: Prof. Lorenzo Pollini, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione

Civil tilt rotor technology can revolutionise how people travel. Tilt rotors can operate from airports or smaller facilities and they are convenient, cost-effective and safe. The SAIS project is funded within the framework of the CS-Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership set up to strengthen European aero-industry collaboration, global leadership and competitiveness. The project will design, develop, produce and empower a smart active inceptors system for the cockpit of the future civil tilt rotor aircraft. It will focus on the inceptor’s mechanical process and study ergonomics, electromechanical sensor actuators, haptic capabilities and command logic with diagnostic capabilities to achieve safety-of-flight (SOF) qualification of the system, allowing flight trial activities. The project will perform technological innovation, creating an active inceptor model designed on the basis of the best ergonomic setting evaluated.

The SAIS project is aimed at designing, developing, manufacturing and qualifying a smart active inceptors system for the cockpit of the next generation civil tiltrotor.

The design will focus on inceptors’ mechanical interfaces and at the same time studies on ergonomics, electromechanical senso-actuators, haptic capabilities, command logic including diagnostic capabilities will be part of SAIS commitment. The project will culminate with the achievement of SOF (Safety of Flight) qualification of the system in order to permit flight trials activities, and with the delivery of one EFA shipset to be installed on NGCTR-TD aircraft.

Support to WAL for integration into Flight Control System (FCS) rig and into NGCTR-TD cockpit, at WAL’s facility, is part of the final goal. Starting from a preliminary system specification provided by WAL at the project start, the SAIS consortium will compile the compliance matrix to be issued at SRR, then the consortium will proceed with the system design, in order to achieve the best inceptor configuration, by considering weight, volumes, power consumption, complexity, integration, availability, reliability and ergonomics as KPIs.

Trade-off activities and a technological innovation assessment with the final aim to identify the possible ergonomic architectures that match the WAL requirements and the tilt rotor specific application will be performed. The system will be integrated into FCS rig and into Tilt-Rotor cockpit at WAL premises’. A modeling and simulation tool of the flight control inceptors will be also developed and shared with WAL in order to support NextGen CTR FCS.

During the development, special care will be dedicated at exploring and assessing mechanical designs and solutions, which enhance piloting effectiveness for tiltrotor application, at improving functionalities by capitalizing on active features by introducing world-class innovations for such a kind of equipment.

Coordinator

MARE ENGINEERING SPA, Italy

Participants

• LIN UP SRL, Italy
• UNIVERSITA DI PISA, Italy
• EU contribution
• UMBRIA AEROSPACE SYSTEMS SPA, Italy
• CBL ELECTRONICS SRL, Italy

Start date 1 June 2020
End date 30 November 2023
Project cost € 4 894 464,38
Project funding € 3 500 000,07
UNIPI quota € 246 250
Call title H2020-CS2-CFP10-2019-01
Funding scheme CS2-IA - Innovation action
UNIPI role Partner